This invention relates to electrode contact assemblies and, more particularly, contact assemblies for making electrical contact with self-baked electrodes.
Prior art contact assemblies with self-baked electrodes have generally included contact shoes which were cast or forged members having hollow passages for cooling water formed by drilling or by casting copper tubes into the contact shoe. One prior art contact assembly consisted of hollow tubing affixed to the surface of the contact jaw to provide both water cooling and electrical contact. Such prior art contact assemblies were generally expensive to fabricate and despite relatively large size, did not achieve more than a few points of electrical contact because the surfaces of self-based electrodes are relatively uneven.